


Surprise

by Servena



Category: Joyeux Noël | Merry Christmas (2005)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Paris (City), Post-Canon, Post-World War I, Reunions, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-28 21:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8464438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: He had shaken this man’s hand, and everything had changed forever.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sommerchallenge 2016.

There’s a hissing sound as the match is lit and an orange flame springs up, bright against the pale light of the street lamps. He takes a drag of the cigarette, then holds it out. Horstmayer accepts it in silence.

They walk side by side through the narrow alley. Snow is falling from the sky and melting on the pavement, their breath form small white clouds, mingled with the rising cigarette smoke.

They pass an empty space in the row of houses on the right, where a bomb crater has replaced a building. 

Memories rise up in him, of another time when snow was falling, and the sky was filled with the howling of grenades. When he first met this man, who is now walking side by side with him, on the other side of a battlefield, separated by little more than a few hundred metres. It might as well have been a hundred kilometres.

And yet once they had crossed this vast space once, it became so easy to do. It became hard not to do.

He had shaken this man’s hand, and everything had changed forever.

Audebert sets a slow pace. Once in a while, he throws a glance at the man walking next to him. The german looks unfamiliar without his uniform, out of place in this peaceful street. But then, he himself has felt out of place ever since he has come back.

He has noticed the limping almost as soon as he saw him. He hasn’t said anything, hasn't quite figured out what, but Horstmayer must have caught his glances. “A piece of shrapnel hit me a few months after we were deported. After that, the war was over for me.”

Suddenly he feels something akin to shame that the war has left him unmarked.

“Bad, was it?” he mumbles.

Horstmayer just takes another drag of the cigarette.

“I'm sorry.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

Wasn’t it, he wonders.

They reach the small building at the corner, where Horstmayer has rented a room. 

“So what is this surprise that you wanted to show me?”

“You'll see”, Horstmayer just says.

The stairs up to the room are narrow and steep and the wood creaks under their steps. “I hope you didn't pay too much for this.”

Horstmayer shrugs. “It's just a room.” He unlocks the door and switches the light on. The room is small and barely high enough to stand in, without much furniture apart from an old closet and a bed near the window.

Audebert looks around. “So, where's the surprise?” he asks, pronouncing 'surprise' french.

He doesn’t get an answer. Instead Horstmayer first lifts the blanket of the bed, then takes a look in the cupboard with a slight frown on his face. Audebert watches, growing more confused by the second. “Irgendwo hier muss er doch sein”, he hears him mumble as he kneels gingerly down on his uninjured leg and pulls the suitcase out from under the bed. “Aha!” 

Auderbert steps closer, and then he sees it, too. Inside the suitcase, curled up on top of a pile of shirts, sleeps a red cat. He would know it anywhere.

“Nestor!” he exclaims. The cat raises his head and blinks sleepily at him. When he kneels down as well and starts to pet him, he immediately starts to purr. “You rescued him! I thought they would kill him.”

“He was to be shot as a traitor. One of my men smuggled him out somehow. I think he bribed a guard.” And after a moment of pause, Horstmayer adds, “And he listens to Felix.”

He looks up. “This is a french cat. He should have a french name.”

“Well, after he spent all this time in Germany, I think he should be considered naturalised.” They look at each other for a moment and then both start to chuckle.

When Horstmayer moves to get up, he reaches out to help him. Their fingers touch, and even when they both stand again it takes a moment before they let go.

“Now”, says Horstmayer, “I believe I was promised a drink.”

He grins. “I told you you didn't have to invade Paris.”


End file.
